Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
while simultaneously creating market share. One pill once a day is
easy to administer, yet it also requires ongoing use, thus ensuring a
continuous supply of patients. Yet when it comes to gaining access
to willing consumers, this is where the politics of healthcare,
inequalities in health and the definitions of health and illness start to
impact on how market demand plays out.
2.2.1 Thepoliticsofhealthcare
Overall, governments are keen to invest in stem cell therapies as
investing in new healthcare developments shows a commitment to
supporting the cost of community healthcare (Gottweis et al., 2009).
Stakeholders in the stem cell sciences also argue that investing in new
therapies could also potentially reduce the healthcare burden on
communities overall (Harvey, 2011). Although it is too soon to tell
if new developments in the stem cell sciences will in fact have any
long-term benefits in this respect, it is clear that the politics of
healthcare expenditure have a significant impact on how investment
and the financing of new health technologies plays out.
Healthcare expenditure as a proportion of gross domestic product
(GDP) has been rising across the Organization for Economic
Development (OECD) since 1960 (Hartwig, 2008). In the US,
expenditure on healthcare rose from 4.8 per cent of GDP in 1960 to
14.7 per cent of GDP in 2003 (Hartwig, 2008). This is arguably the
largest percentage increase across the OECD (Hartwig, 2008). For
the most part, the rise in healthcare expenditure has been directly
linked to rising GDP (Hartwig, 2008). That is, as GDP increases so
does expenditure on healthcare so that the richer the nation overall,
the more money is spent on healthcare (Hartwig, 2008). Moreover,
increasing wages but relatively static productivity in the healthcare
sector overall have also been identified as contributing to increasing
expenditure (Hartwig, 2008).
Other studies have also supported this view that the high cost of
healthcare in the US is directly responsible for the large expenditure
on healthcare in comparison to the rest of the OECD (Anderson and
Frogner, 2008). Yet the question is: what kind of return does high
